and to help all that hard work pay off, membership brings out millions of us on small business saturday and every day to make shopping small huge. this is what membership is. this is what membership does. u.s. embassies close across the middle east in response to what officials call a very specific terroristic threat. in just a minute we'll talk about the massive effort to unseat colorado legislators for supporting gun control. first a quick status report on today's developing situation in the middle east where a total of 22 u.s. embassies consulates and in north africa closed after the state department issued a travel warning of potential terroristic attacks beginning today through

the end of the month. closed embassies span from western coast of africa to afghanistan. we're joined by msnbc news foreign correspondent amman residing from cairo. >> reporter: good morning, steve. there's no doubt about it. the u.s. embassy here in cairo is one of the largest diplomatic facilities in the world, heavily guarded and today it would normally be lined up for business. people would be lined up for all kinds of services. today it's shut down. we're not sure when it will reopen that's because of this new terrorist threat that's emerged in recent days. there's no intelligence to suggest that this facility here is, indeed, the target. nonetheless, officials here cannot take that risk. so, in the course of the last several days they have beefed up security around the u.s. embassy. it is, as we mentioned, heavily guarded. in the past already blast walls, traffic has been diverted in recent months because the embassy here finds itself at the risk of terroristic related attack and in a dangerous

political environment where there are constant protests outside the u.s. embassy walls. many of the political leaders in this country have been bashing the united states government for its foreign policy. so, it finds itself in a unique position. perhaps different from other u.s. facilities around the world. as of right now, we don't know exactly what that terrorism-related threat is but it seems to be emanating from the arabian peninsula, particularly in yemen. although u.s. officials have not elaborated as to why they have taken that broad measure to shut down 2 2 embassies across the arab world and some beyond. >> thank you very much. appreciate the report. in the last decade and a half two of the worst mass shootings in the united states have happened in the state of colorado. 14 years ago there was the massacre at columbine when they killed 12 students and a teacher and then themselves. the shooting last july at a midnight movie screening in aurora colorado where 12 people were killed and another 70 or were injured. some paralyzed for life by a

single gunman who was armed with 100-round drum magazine and multiple firearms. the "usa today" report that marked the one-year anniversary of aurora two weeks ago found that since that massacre last year there have been 23 more mass shootings in 19 states. shootings that have left 126 more people dead. that includes the shooting at a sikh temple in wisconsin, the carnage of sandy hook elementary school late last year. in response to this the democrat-controlly colorado state legislature passed three gun control measures which were signed into law by john hickenlooper. one limits ammunition magazines to 15 rounds. second requires universal background checks on all sales, including private sales. the third makes gun buyers pay $10 toward the cost of those background checks. the ink from hickenlooper's

signature was very dry and pro-gun groups decided to go after four lawmakers who supported the bills. all four of them democrats. they tally failed to get enough signatures to get the recall on the ballots but they got enough to face two state senators to face recall elections in their district. one is the president of the state senate, john morse from colorado springs and angela herr herron. now the recall is september september 10th. national conservative groups like the national rifle association and even americans for prosperity, a group not typically involved in gun control battles, have already joined the fray, throwing the support and checkbooks behind the recall. michael bloomberg, the financial force behind the nation's leading gun control group, vowed

he would weigh in for support for targeted lawmakers. to want bring in dave weigel, former congresswoman, marjorie margolies, jennifer kerns, a group backing the colorado recall effort, and kurtis lee. the names probably don't much many to anybody but the story does. a nationally significant story where the -- sort of the pro-gun forces are trying to make a powerful statement here. the gun control crowd, for its part s trying make a powerful statement. tell us about the districts these two state senators and how vulnerable are they to actually losing their elections? >> steve john morse is president in colorado, represents el paso county in southern colorado. it's a district divided evenly.

it reflect it is much of the way colorado, the state has the electorate divided. angela is in pueblo, 20 miles south of colorado spring and her district is more democrat leading. it's interesting to see her face recall for organizers to gather enough signatures for her to face recall. morse's district is much more competitive. >> it looks like -- i guess this do four-year terms for state senators in colorado and there's a two-term limit so morse is toward the end of his second term which will end in 2014. >> yeah, morse was elected to the state senate in 2006, won in 2008 by a slim margin, less than 350 votes in 2010. that shows you how competitive his seat is. a third-party candidate was on the ballot at the time. there won't be for the recall election. and then angela herrone facing reelection but not term-limited the way morse is. >> jennifer, now, you are not from colorado.

you came to colorado for the recall, is that right? >> no. i live and work in kol. >> oh, i completely read that wrong. tell us about why you decided to make -- try to make this chose recalls and legislators to make a statement about this. >> what's happening in colorado is a microcosm of what you're seeing on the national scale which is this large government overreach. we've seen it on the national scale with nsa phone records, the department of justice getting the ap phone records took a majority democrat status in the state of colorado and i believe they went and did an overreach. they overreached on gun control, overreached on the billion dollar tax increase and -- >> they're being recalled specifically because of guns. you say overreach and the polling is -- it can be weird because what was actually in the

legislation is not exactly what's polled. when you ask about background checks in colorado, we have polling from earlier this year like 85% support in colorado so how can that be overreach? >> this recall starts with gun control but ends with accountability. what started in colorado and sparked these recall elections and got regular citizens to get off the sofa and work for the recall elections, is john morse did not listen to his constituents. in fact, he shut down the debate and the dissent, changed rules midstream, took a page from nancy pelosi's east coast playbook and said we have to pass these first before we read them, and we're not going to let you testify. to the point where colorado citizens, thousands of them streamed in to testify on these gun control bills, were told they couldn't testify once they showed up. you know what they did? they went outside the state capitol and drove around the state kopt acapitol and honked

horns. it was as much about accountability as gun control. >> to be fair, there were hours of testify in committees, ten-plus hours, sometimes floor debate lasted for hours. people did travel to the state capitol. opponents and proponents had equal time to speak. >> but really -- >> obviously, some people had to be turned away. proponents as well as opponents had to be turned away. >> i see this in state legislatures a lot, it remind me of, dave, like health care in 2010. if you care passionately your way it's automatically the other side is forcing it down your throat. i hear that all the time. >> i'm getting flashbacks to wisconsin. i covered the recalls in wisconsin, the pass of the budget repair bill pretty closely. i was in the room when the budget repair bill which broke collective bargaining gaveled in

because like a democrat sneezed and they had a second and they gaveled it right in. they were filibustering the whole thing. that wasn't enough to convince the average voter that they needed to reverse what had been done. the message that ended up succeeding -- not all the state senate recalls but for scott walker in the end, just because you disagree with this one bill, doesn't mean you overturn government. we've seen this before when a very loud minority, and it is minority on some of these gun rights issues. you're tying it to things less popular than background checks. background checks across the country, very popular. republicans seeing it as key role in filibustering the national bill, very less popular. democrats who voted against it are more popular. i think if it's -- if it becomes the 5,000 gun owners who rallied against this, i saw how that ended in wisconsin. 100,000 people outside the capitol did not equal majority

overturning what they didn't like. >> marjorie, i want to ask you about this because you have the experience when you served in congress in '93 and '94, you voted on two big pieces of gun control legislation. the brady bill which had background checks and the assault weapons ban. you ran in the 1994 -- you lost your seat in 1994 when nra and other gun groups were mobilized. can you talk about the experience that maybe these legislators in colorado are having right now of voting for gun control and facing the kind of back lash that the nra directed toward you 20 years ago? >> my question is, i thought that recall elections were for people who had done something really bad. criminal. i didn't think that recall elections were there to question people who had sponsored legislation. that surprises me. i had a terrible time with -- in pennsylvania. pennsylvania has more guns than any other state except for texas.

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so, jennifer, i wanted to pick up the point marjorie is making about why now and -- you're not talking about criminal wrongdoing or ethical wrongdoing that would necessity a recall here. you hinted, something you said earlier, you said it started out as guns and it's turned into something bigger. here's something that struck me. this is americans for prosperity. this is a group that i have not typically associated with gun control efforts. they have a pamphlet. they are now investing in this race to get these democratic

state senators recall. look, not only is this a nongun control group on the right that's involved. the message here has nothing to do with gun control. they're talking about obama care, stopping it is the government takeover of health care. my reading on this is a little cynical. it's the conservative movement at large saw an opportunity to overturn elections. >> marjorie, you as an elected official don't get to constitute your recall election. the people decide that. that's a constitutional fundamental right as upheld by a judge in denver court. we live in a representative system where our elected officials go and they represent the interests of their district. you know, in deference to dave, this isn't just a recall election driven by a small group of people. he mentioned 5,000 people. there were over 16,000 people in the area that signed a petition for recall just for senator john

morse. that was more votes than he got when he first got elected to the position. 10,000 or more of those got certified. and now we're in a recall situation. but, look, that district's very interesting. a third republican. a third democrat, a third unaffiliated. the interesting thing about this is it's really not a party battle. more independents and democrats combined signed the petition for recall than republicans did in that district. that shows you the people of colorado are independent thinkers. it's a state of rugged individualism where people make their decision based on the issues and how those elected officials -- >> so, then, vote them out. you put them in there to make decisions. you put them in there to create laws. the law passed. and now we're deciding we're going to vote them out for a specific? vote them out next time. >> that's what democrats are saying. they're saying, morse is term limited, angela herron is up for re-election. why have taxpayers in el paso

county, estimating $150,000 for special election, in pueblo, $186,000. they're saying taxpayers don't need to pay this. that's what elections are for. wait. >> if you want to be sneaky about this, morse could technically resign his seat and have a replacement appointed by the local democrat who is would be immune to any kind of a recall. you know, they decided, hey, we'll try to make a stand here. i want to bring in -- we have mark glaze, director of mayors against illegal guns, preeminent national gun control group right now. gun control supporters are looking to them and saying, mark, i'll ask you, you know, you're looking at this race. listening to jennifer talk about these signatures, democrats, pro-gun individuals, signing these petitions. what are you doing to try to protect these two state senators who voted for gun control? >> we're reminding people that we have 13 mayors in colorado who led the charge to pass these laws.

50,000 supporters part of the 85%, 90% of folks in colorado who think a bill that requires people to get a criminal background check before they buy a gun doesn't do anything to stop anybody from vindicating their second amendment rights but saves a lot of lives. after the columbine shooting way back when in 1999, the colorado legislature refused to close the gun show loophole, which is how those killers got their guns. a bunch of folks led by a republican businessman raised some money, put it on the ballot, closed the gun show loophole by 70%. the sky didn't haul, despite what folks like jennifer said. people continue to get their guns. they get background checks and they save a lot of lives. >> we talked about -- we showed the flier from americans by prosperi prosperity. are you seeing broader effort by conservative groups that have nothing to do about gun control? >> i love the flier and the radio ads that sort of have mayor bloomberg's picture on them and say absolutely nothing about guns. this is about taxes. it's about obama care.

it's about the whole thing the kotch brothers don't live in colorado, but may have a house in as sppen or something, it's way to have coloradans pay a price, where i lived until i was 24, put people through a whole lot of hassle. herron and morse are punished and put through their paces but has very little to do with guns. >> you know, the reason you're seeing mayor bloomberg's photos on the fliers is mayor bloomberg is calling mayor hickenlooper during critical gun debates, it's your pc -- >> i can tell you -- >> putting multiple checks into the race in kol. as i mentioned, and as steve mentioned, colorado is a very rugged, individualistic state. they don't like billionaire mayors from new york city telling them what to do, what bills to support, what elected

officials not to support. >> well, allow me as a native coloradan to tell you a thing tore two, jennifer. you're right about that. my dad was a gun dealer, sold guns out of a glass case and hunting licenses. i get the mind set. the mind set of rugged individualism is we don't need michael bloomberg or kotch brothers or jennifer or kurtis telling us anything. 85%, 90% of folks in kol have decided what's common sense. it's okay to get a background check. does no damage to the second amendment. people are safer. we have 13 mayors in colorado on the front lines of this battle. they're not members of congress who deal with this as an interest group issue. they're the one who is get the call at 3:00 in the morning when a police officer is gunned down in the street. they understand that dealing with these issues is not just politically possible but absolutely politically necessary. if they're going to keep their cities safe and be re-elected.

that's the way mayors deal with this issue. >> we'll keep you around for another segment. we're going to bring in one of the state senators facing this recall effort and we'll hear from him, john morse. so... [ gasps ]

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yummy, scrumptious bars. hmm? i just wanted you to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. [ male announcer ] fiber one. we still have mark glaze. kurtis lee, who has been covering this story in colorado, has a question for. >> you earlier this week mayor bloomberg was asked by a reporter how will mayors against illegal guns play a role in the recall elections. he said he certainly hoped they would play a role. you said you'll get messages out. can we expect to see money coming to the race from you all? what can we expect? >> the first thing we'll do is make hur our nair is there and 50,000 supporters are activated in helping to turn people out to prevent justice from being -- or the democratic system from being kind of messed around with so that decisions that were made on their merits don't get tossed out by a very small group of people spending money from out of state. will the mayor kick in a little bit of money?

he probably will. let me tell you why. over the past decade the nra has spent well more than $100 million electing and unelecting candidates all over the country. 90% of the public who thinks people ought to get a background check are drowned out. more than 10,000 people have contributed to the effort to keep these guys in office. i think people from all over the country can and should help out. the nra, make no mistake, is trying to make an example of these folks for doing the right thing. the right thing happened to be what almost everybody in colorado wanted them to do. if we allow folks to converge and kick them out of office for doing the straightforward thing we know works to save lives. it's going to send a bad signal around the country. we're going to do our part. >> it should be noted, though, the nra right now, if you look at finance reports, has only tossed in less than $1,000 into these recall efforts. that's just through mailers. that's it. >> let me ask you, dave, looking

at the national picture on this. we have americans for prosperity, limited nra investment at this point but this is starting to get national attention. what do you think, if these legislators get recalled, what impact does that have nationally? if they survive, what impact does that have on the gun control debate? >> it's high risk, high reward. scott walker was recalled the message went out if you break collective bargaining, anything you didn't run on that is basically a conservative, libertarian, anti-labor reform, you can survive. i think the same thing here. if these democrats survive, i think you're going -- basically it's an a-one story if they survive. hopefully for liberals, a-9 if they don't. recall election happened in colorado. i think it is going to be important for democrats, for liberals, if they can hold onto these people. i'm interested by how we're discussing so far, though, because every side wants to say they're populist, right?

michael bloomberg has easy for ridicule because it's a scary billionaire from new york, spending money in these races. when i hear republicans talk about how they kill the gun bill in the senate. they say the same thing. american people rose up. had nothing to do -- they never mentioned the nra. in colorado maybe the nra hasn't spent yet but a gun manufacturer was helping this election happen. he was threatening to leave the state. giving people -- i think it was $10 -- >> the kotch brothers. >> no, it wasn't them. they were saying, please help us stay in the state. it's very connected to business. the gun industry wants more people to buy buns aguns and op these things. that's when it comes to bloomberg, it looks clumsy when he dumps into a race. >> i want to bring in democratic

state senate president of colorado senate, john morse. one of two senators being targeted in the recall. he joins us from denver now. senator, thanks for your time. let me ask you about that point, we have jennifer kerns right here, part of the effort, leading the effort to recall you. she's invoked mayor bloomberg. we see ads playing off, oh, this is the billionaire mayor from new york trying to meddle in colorado. is that something from your constituents, the people in your district, are they talking about that at all? is he a factor in this race at all? >> no, he hasn't been a factor in the race at all. as mark glaze suggested, we've had some 10,000 donors from my district, from my state, from around the country on a grass roots level that have really kept this campaign going to this point. if there's money coming in the future, i mean, that's spectacular, but to date this has very much been a grassroots frefrt a fund-raising perspective on our side. >> you had a -- when you ran in

2010 you had a very close race up. come from a district -- colorado springs area. you come from what i know to be a more conservative part of colorado. were you surprised when you cast these votes for gun control? when you got behind this legislation, were you surprised this was the result? or were you surprised, i'm hitting the bee's nest here. >> i certainly expected something to happen. recall wasn't at the tip of my tongue. but about april 21st we discovered that they were paying for the signatures and so we knew from that day forward that there would be a recall election. once you buy the signatures, i mean, you can buy anything in this country. they did and so we're going to have a recall election. >> i think you had a new tv ad this week. it does not actually mention guns. we talked about how groups like groups for american prosperity are coming in, trying to talk about obama care and other national stuff. but it sounds like maybe you're

seeing sensitivity on gun issues and expand it and talk about other issues? what's the reason for not making guns part of your ad campaign? >> this is a recall. so, they're recalling me as a human being. and identi've served for the la seven years. this isn't a recall of laws. if i'm recalled, i go and the laws, thank god, will stay and will stay for a long time to come because they have popular support. if you talk about recalling me i need to talk about what i stand for, what i've done, how i've thought and how i represented my constituents. so that's what this election is about. this election is not about these particular gun bills. that certainly started it, perhaps, but it's gotten much bigger as you have already alluded to with all kind of flyers and whatnot talking about everything that i've done and not just guns. and so we're going to talk about everything that we've done. and, you know, it's sort of like when i was a police officer,

they trained us that every fight that we got into was a gun fight because there was a gun on our hip in every fight we got into. so same thing is here -- is true here, the gun folks will bring guns to this fight. i don't have to do that. it will be front and center. i can talk about everything else that's gone on and why this real really out not happen so so many levels. >> we have one of the gun folks here, jennifer, and i want to give you a chance to talk to each other. ♪ this summer was definitely worth the wait. ♪ summer's best event from cadillac. let summer try and pass you by. lease this all-new cadillac ats for around $299 per month or purchase for 0% apr for 60 months. come in now for the best offers of the model year. i don't miss out... you sat out most of our game yesterday!

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past week to hold an in-person town hall to address your constituents who you went on the rachel maddow show to say, don't take e-mails from your constituents, don't take the phone calls. we want to know if you would accept your constituents' town hall challenge? >> what i'm doing is talking to my constituents one-on-one at the door. what i said on rachel maddow you have to i guess newer the e-mails that are disgusting and vile and don't get to the issue. most of the e-mails fall in that category. they start with, you're an idiot so i'm sure you're not going to listen to what i have to say. truthfully by the time you get that far into an e-mail, you know it's not going to have a great deal of value for you. i've represented my constituents for seven years. i've lived in my community for most of the last 45 years. we had a town hall a couple weeks ago and we structured it in a way that thousands of people could participate, which

is very different than what happens with a normal town hall. so for the next five weeks or so, i'm going to be meeting my constituents one-on-one in my door steps. >> that was a telephone town hall, as kurtis is pointing out here. as a senator of clarification, it's not john morse going to the door steps, he has been sending investigators to door steps, it's been printed in the denver post, criminalizing -- >> senator, i want your response. >> certainly, there are lots of people going to people's door steps, including me. i do it as much as i can every single day. so, she's wrong about that. but she's -- what she's alluding to is the 16,000 signatures that were collected. 6,000 of them were thrown out by the secretary of state. another several thousand turn out to be bogus as well. if we would have had enough time, we certainly could have gotten below the number of

signatures required. one of the signatures that counted was from a woman who died about two years before she signed the petition. so the fraud and the forgery -- >> so, yeah, let me just -- because the allegation was sort of news to me, although i think i'm hearing something every time there's a recall or an incumbent gets a challenger, people applying scrutiny to signatures. >> there are so many side shows going on in this recall. claims of forgery going on, from the proponents saying morse's people are calling them and wanting them to take their names off the petitions, intin damida. senator morse's gun vote and obviously senator morse is going to -- wants to talk about other issues as well. there's so much going on in this recall and on the side as well. >> i want to bring back, mark glaze, i know we have him.

i want to ask you from some of the national perspective looking at this, how important is this to your side, to what you're trying to do, to the gun control forces in this country? how important is it to make a statement here that you can go in a statement of gun culture like colorado, vote for relatively modest and in the grand scheme of things gun control measures and you can survive a recall effort like this? >> well, look, it's very important the people who support senators morse and herron show up and say they believe in what they do and they're part of the 90% who think background checks are a good idea. let me tell you what's going to happen in the longer term. there's a big outcry and then once laws pass, in states that have closed this loophole and require background check force all gun sales, 38% fewer women are murdered by a gun with their domestic partner. 49% fewer people commit suicide with a gun while folks who commit suicide by other mains

remain constant. fewer aggravated assaults, fewer police officers are killed with guns. that's what happens when you pass these laws. people are learning in colorado, a couple hundred already have their background check because they wanted to have a private handgun purchase. they passed their background check, got the gun, the sky failed to fall and life goes on. things are safer in colorado. i think now and in the future people will thank senators morse and herron for being leaders. >> we're five weeks from this election. something we'll be revisiting between now and then. if you care about gun control, either side, this is the place to be watching these two districts in colorado for the next five weeks. mark glaze, mayors against illegal guns, denver democratic state colorado senate john morse, jennifer kerns from basic freedom defense fund and kurtis lee from "the denver post." first perfected 20 years ago.

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this coming week will mark the 20th anniversary of a momentous event. actually, it's going to mark the 20th anniversary of two momentous events. one is my favorite brawl in baseball history. august 4, 1993, arlington stadium, arlington, texas. nolan ryan, 46 years old at the time, finishing up his final big league season. he hits robin ventura of the chicago white sox as a pitch. he takes exception to it, charges the mound, gets snared in a head lock and then ryan pounds the knot osnot out of mi did i mention nolan ryan was two decades older than ventura. that is not the 20th anniversary that i want to talk about today. the other 20th anniversary that's coming up this week is the 20th anniversary of this. it was bill clinton signing what was called the omnibus budget reconciliation act of 1993. this was clinton's first budget at president. it had taken months to get it

through congress. it was hugely unpopular. and it ended up having massive far-reaching implications that no one expected at the time. implications that in many ways still shape and define politics today. implications that some people, many republicans in particular, have never fully grappled with. this was the budget. clinton's 1993 budget that played a big role in wiping out deficits by the end of the decade, that let clinton hand off a surplus to bush in 2001, a budget that not one single member of the house or senate, zero, voted for, a budget that cemented them as anti-tax party and created the template for the behavior that became the basis for the gop obama-era strategy. in 1992 clinton campaigned for president on a promise to raise income taxes on the wealthiest americans. >> what is the vision of our new

covenant? an america in which middle class incomes, not middle class taxes, are going up. an america, yes, in which the wealthiest few, those making over $200,000 a year are asked to pay for their fair share. >> he won that election and then he made that promise the cornerstone of his budget, income tax on the top 1.2% of earners, the creation of a new tax bracket, 39.6% for highest incomes. he said it would help tame deficits that exploded in the reagan and bush 41 ears. ross perot made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and won 20% of the vote, despite being kind of crazy. little enthusiasm for the budget clinton drew up. plenty of democrats were nervous about endorsing a tax hike and among republicans unanimous opposition because republicans were coming off a civil war of taxes. a civil war that had broken out when bush 41 cut a deal with

democrats to raise them in 1990. by 1993 the anti-tax side on the fight was claiming vindication. 1993 was also the first time in 12 years democrats controlled the white house. the gop had grown far more conservative in that time and the demand was high for republican leaders in washington to fight the new president tooth and nail on everything. and so clinton's modest tax increase became in the words of seemingly every republican in washington in 1993 the largest tax increase in american history. what's more, republicans made some very specific claims about what would happen if the budget was enacted. when it passed the house on a 218-216 vote on the night of august 5, 1993, this is what they said. >> we're going to come back here next year. there will be higher deficits. there will be more spending. it will continue to have a very slow economy. people aren't going to go to work. >> i believe this will lead to recession next year. this is the democrat machine's recession. and each one of them will be

held personally accountable. >> the day after that it squeaked through senate, thanks to a tiebreaking vote from al gore. clinton then signed it into law. republicans were giddy. polls showed the budget was unpopular and now the gop had a weapon for the 1994 midterms when a democrat from pennsylvania, marjorie margolies, also my guest from her, we'll hear from her again, when she provided a key last-minute vote for it, republicans in the house floor turned to her and chanted, bye-bye, marjorie. it was harsh. it was also pressure. she lost her seat in 1994 and so did dozens of other democrats. '94 midterms mp a blood bath for clinton's party and republicans regained control of the house for the first time since the dwight eisenhower years. then something funny happened. that second recession that republicans warned about, it was millions of jobs that were sure to be lost, none of it ever materialized. in the year after the budget was enacted, unemployment actually fell by a point. it kept falling. by the end of the decade it crept under 4%. deficits plummeted, too.

they were wiped out by 1998. when clinton's second term ended, the elimination of the entire national debt was within sight. we're still feeling the impact of what happened 20 years ago this summer. 1993, bill clinton's first term, first year of his first term, republicans discovered the huge political payoff that can come from unified and unyielding opposition and obstruction. they stood together and fought his budget and just about everything else he proposed. then turned around and had one of best elections in history. now all these years later they've taken it to new levels. their grip on the house seems firm. the old playbook, in many ways is still useful. what about the fact their dire warnings 20 years ago ended up being just plain wrong? were there any consequences for that? are there any consequences today for being wrong like that? we're going to talk about that next. how much protein

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we're going to talk about the roots of the republican idea of mass resistance against democratic presidents. started in the clinton years. i want to bring in jared bernstein, former economic adviser to joe biden, senior fellow. avik roy, former adviser on health care to the romney campaign. so, marjorie, i think i told you before the show, i marked this date on my calendar a while back with the 20th anniversary -- >> have you to walk it off. >> i said, there is no one i would rather talk to on the 20th anniversary of this budget than marjorie margolies because i remember watching that scene. i remember the republicans chanting, bye, bye marjorie. >> and bob walker jumping up and down. he was a fine jumper. he was right. what he was saying was absolutely true, bye-bye. >> take us back to what the climate was like back then. we showed bill clinton ran in 1992 talking about how he was going to go into office raise taxes on the wealthy.

ross perot made the deficit a national priority. bill clinton comes in. he says, we're going to tackle the deficit, do it by slightly raising taxes on the wealthy and it set off this sort of popular revolt. >> well, 1.2% of the population? they all lived in my district. >> bryn mar. >> but it was fascinating for me. i had said over and over again i'm not going to be a read my lips candidate because i didn't know what was going to happen when i got down there. we went down with him. it was his most important piece of legislation. we didn't know that it was going to create 23 million jobs, that it was going to create the largest sustained period of economic growth since world war ii. we did not know that. but, in fact, it did. but we knew it had to pass. all day long on the -- on the floor that day, republicans were saying, we know it has to pass, not one of us will vote for it. walked in that night and they were high-fiving saying they

didn't have the votes. and a lot of the democrats were saying they were going to switch. i'm thinking, wow. now, when the president called and said, what would it take, i did not say your firstborn. i serialously said, we have to have a serious question about entitlements and more cuts. and i will only be your last vote. there had only been two votes like that in history. impeachment of andrew johnson and the draft. and so that's where i was. >> and he -- they ended up -- there was -- he came to your district a few months later -- >> i told him at the time, you're going to lose this district if i -- i mean, it was the most republican district represented by a democrat in the country. and it was extraordinary they had to come to me to do this. but i did tell him, i'll only be his last vote. i was surprised that -- >> it was a national thing, too. you talk about your district being republican-leaning and a wealthy district, too. we're looking at 1994 mid terms where it was 52 democrats losing

seats around the country. republicans, every incumbent got, a but for this vote you wouldn't have -- >> everyone was accused of being the last rote. also something else interesting happened, but the women really stayed -- the class that -- we were 24 new women democrats. we were decimated, absolutely decimated. most of the women voted for it because they thought it was responsible. i think that's what we're seeing today, too. women in the senate are starting to get together and talk. that's what we need. i also think -- we can talk about this ad naseum, but i think people are sick of folks not getting things done and not willing to take tough votes. >> we have a much longer discussion coming up, but i want to pick this up and talk about the lessons that the political system can kind of draw from what happened in 1993.

i said in that destruction, i definitely see republicans saw the political benefit of unified opposition. they reaped a huge wind fall in 1994. what i've wondered for the last 20 years, especially since it became clear those dire predibs didn't come clear if there were any policy lessons learned from democrats. febreze free with no e to prove the skeptics wrong. hi. are you karen? [ karen ] yes, i am you said in a focus group, "they just mask the smell." i'm going to ask you to find the smelliest item in your home. here. okay. [ laughs ] very, very strong dog odor. this is febreze free. it has no perfume. wow. now it smells clean, and it doesn't have an odor. you're welcome. [ male announcer ] odor elimination without masking. the proof is in every bottle of febreze fabric refresher. breathe happy.

we are talking about it's the 20th anniversary of bill clinton's budget. we're talking about the legacy because the implications are far-reaching and i think we're feeling them today in terms of budget politics but in terms of what that did to republican opposition party behavior. we're joined by msnbc jared bernstein, former adviser to joe biden, avik roy, dave weigel of slate.com and marjorie margolies.

i ended the last hour by saying, i definitely get that republicans looked at the approach they took to this budget in 1993. not a single republican in the house, not a single republican senate voting for it. we heard senator casic warn. when you measure those warnings we played, the deficits were gone by 1998, they fell every year after this budget passed and gone by '98. the second recession never occurred. unemployment was under 6% a year. i never heard republicans grapple with that and say taxes didn't hurt the economy in the 1990s. >> the doom and gloom predictions weren't accurate, of course. correlation is not causation. what would the economic growth have been without those tax increases? we don't know. the overall clinton record was not addition there was the 1997 capital gains tax, affirmation

of the north american free trade, dotcom book m -- >> the budget deficits were wiped out. these were specific claims made by republicans. i bring in that because i hear the same claims now. i heard the same claims in the run if up to the fiscal cliff last year. >> don't forget defense spending. there was a one-time decrease in defense spending after the cold war and that drove reduction in clinton years. that was a big driver in deficit reduction. there was a slight revenue increase in the first term, most happened in the second term because that's where the growth, particularly on the tax side, happened. >> yes, economic growth ticked up but if you have higher rates that will bring a wind fall of revenue -- >> well, growth kicked up considerab considerably. it's one of the reasons revenues came in. but i pretty strongly disagree

with my colleague, avik, on this point. it's not like the opposition was saying, if you do this, if you increase taxes and then you do a bunch of other stuff that goes the other way, somehow we'll be okay. they were saying clearly, as they're still saying today f you increase taxes on a fairly narrow slice at the top of the income scale, everything's going to go to hell in a hand basket. the economy's going to tank. not only did that not occur, as you've stressed, but in the very next decade we had the opposite test. we had a test in the george w. bush years that went the other way. that said, we're going to cut all kinds of taxes and it's going to unleash lots of economic growth. the opposite happened. not only did it not unleash economic improgrowth, it was a decade, but of course the deficit became a big problem again. i don't think it's fair to say there are a lot of moving parts. there's always a lot of moving parts. i think the policy lesson just hasn't been learned. >> and we were given a surplus.

>> tax revenue in the bush years did go up but spending went up more. that was the big problem. in the clinton years spending as a percentage of the economy actually shrunk because -- >> you're introducing -- i agree with you -- relevant moving point. the argument here is if you implement a tax increase in terms of bill clinton or a tax cut in terms of george bush can you go to a place where this has tremendously horrible or tremendously wonderful effects. the clinton years -- >> overall the empirical evidence is overwhelming that increased taxes lead to lower economic growth but other factors mean in the -- >> see? >> but let me -- let me -- what we're hearing is what you hear -- what we hear from lots of republicans. i'm struck -- we're talking about the impact the clinton budget had. i want to say george bush sr. cut a bipartisan deal in 1990 to cut taxes. you look at surplus at the end.

decade, george bush sr. gets credit for that as well. the idea of a republican president doing what george bush sr. did in 1990, the idea 6 the top republican in the senate, bob dole, going along with it. the republican party has changed dramatically on this. it seemed to change back then, in the last 20 years, where it's unthinkable you have a republican president and significant number of republicans in congress voting for something like this. >> in 1991 it's a telling lesson, because there was a recession after bush passed this, we lost an elections because bush lied so we'll never do this again. >> read my lips. >> yes. i was at heritage foundation this week, not actually to celebrate the heritage foundation's health care mandate but for ted cruz to talk about health care. he said republicans stood strong in 1990 and we had balanced

budgets. republican version of history and the cruz version is eclipses other versions of how the party should operate. is that when republicans came in and shut down the government and refused -- that's when -- that's when we got balanced budgets, that's what we got economic growth. the economic growth, as we've been saying, was happening apart from that. they're not applying those lessons now. remember the obama attacks were when he said -- at least the romney stump speech, he said he would cut the deficit in half in the first term. that didn't happen. what's the deficit after he raised taxes and the fiscal cliff deal and after we have, you know, a sequestration we don't like, basically cuts republicans said we need and democrats are willing to agree with. it's about cut in half. >> it's going down. >> it also has something to do with the narrative. the narrative that the republicans have created is not only simple and linear, but it's also much easier to swallow. i can remember listening to the -- you know, what was my

message, i could explain it in three, four minutes easily. it was a perfect 30-second commercial. and the contract was exactly what people wanted -- >> contract with america. >> yes. we called it the contract. >> right. >> and that's the thing that's interesting, too. you're right to focus on the political implications because in the last 20 years lessons republicans and conservatives have learned if they fight hard and hold the line on taxes that's rewarding. the two other pillars of big government if you're a conservative are spending and regulation. there has been comparatively less attention by conservatives and republicans on holding the line on spending and holding the line on regulatory growth compared to taxes. there's been -- there's this knee-jerk fight on taxes. >> what is that, i'm wondering? in the context of the early 1990s the newt gingrich crowd could say george bush cut a dirty deal with democrats and we had the recession. you could say the recession started before that deal. i get the nairtive worked in 1992-1993. when you have this experience of

what happened in the 1990s and talking about these other priorities the party could be emphasizing, why is it the republican party is so committed to something as specific as we're never going to raise taxes, period? why is that such a bottom line issue? >> i think of the lessons from 1990, 1992 and 1993. it's such a core issue. bob novak was famous for saying, god put republicans on earth to cut taxes. that lesson has been internalized. the problem is the policy challenges of today aren't really so much about tax rates as they are about spending and regulation. again, if you're a conservative. so, that's where i think there needs to be a lot more of an adjustment where the policy attention is. that hasn't really happened because we're still having the legacy of those lesson the '90s and this younger generation of conservatives and republicans are trying to focus more on those issues but they're not -- they're not at the peak yet. >> i think if you actually look at the evidence, you don't see much for this argument in the following sentence, the spending side of the obama budget, which i think republicans typically

argue is a huge runaway spender, went up a lot in the recession. that had to do with offsetting the large demand contraction. since then, even in nomal terms, even if you don't adjust for inflation, spending of the president has been flat or gone down a little bit. i think we would agree with this under bill clinton, fell as a share of gdp. so the lesson from all this on the economy is very simple and clear, especially if you compare clinton years with the w. bush years, supply side tax cuts don't work. and when you raise taxes, guess what, your budget deficit goes down. it's very hard to chop your budget deficit to get to where you want, a sustainable budget path without new revenues. if you try to do that exclusively on the spending side, which is your argument, you have to cut government functions which people depend on. >> at exactly the wrong time. >> we see that very clearly in the house budget. >> i would definitely disagree with that. really if you think about the

long-term fiscal trends, the way to address long-term fiscal trends is to bend the cost curve on health care entitlements. >> agree. >> if you have economic growth, the revenue increases to make up for that. you don't have to have these drastic catastrophic cuts -- >> but what i'm talking about is if you look at the paul ryan budget, there is literally over $100 billion of cuts in food stamps. so, that's not bending the health care cost curve. there's a block granting of medicaid. in other words, these are budgets that purport to cut spending in ways that will achieve a sustainable budget which we both agree has to deal with bending the health care cost curve but that's not what they're focusing on. they're going after discretionary spending and trying to -- >> i want to pick occupy that point. we'll carry it over after the break and talk about how 1993 affected the politics of -- the congressional politics, whether in crafting the spending bills right now in the house or just congressional politics in general and republican opposition. i want to talk about how those two connect after this.

i want to put it up on the screen. february 2009. these are the final votes, the house first, on the stimulus. you can just see, this is the first major act of the obama administration, first democrat since bill clinton. every republican voting against it. the senate side, stimulus february 2009. you had the three republicans who crossed over and voted yes. one quickly became not a republican. that was arlen spectre from pennsylvania. having this thought, here we go again. the same playbook for obama as we saw for clinton. on filibusters, on nominations. it's that times two. >> less clear in 2009 you were going to have such a -- the

possibility of an election afterward because you had a president coming in during a recession. maybe some republicans knew how long it would last or what the curve might be. but note the lesson they took from that -- and i think mitch mcconnell more than anyone else in the house, immediately after the health care vote, house republicans released a video from aerosmith. if you're looking for an analog to 1993 that's probably it, saying this is going to destroy everything, collapse under its own weight, cause businesses to shudder. it's the same argument. you could keep public opinion aside, no matter how it's affecting them, you see republicans do that when they convince people not to lobby in favor of the laws, it's partisan and obviously flawed.

>> it seems to me the public has really, really had enough of kind of what you're describing. congress has a, what, 10% approval rating. people say they actually want them to cooperate on things. how is that strategy such a good strategy? >> isn't it sort of the noise that comes through the media? i remember it was right after the 2010 mid-terms when obama cut the deal on extending bush tax cuts, which in theory should not have been popular but it polled extremely well. i contribute the noise, there were republicans out there praising obama, some democrats tagging him, and it looked like he was in the middle, so to speak. >> which he was saying earlier, there's this overwhelming -- that credibility, people are callinging in and -- people don't call in if they're satisfied. they call in when they're dissatisfied. you walk into your congressional office and they say nine out of ten calls were against it. that has nothing to do with reality. then it's covered by the yous of the world. and it's very skewed.

if you talk to the public now, they want to start to get things done. >> i want to ask you, marjorie, before i forget, dave mentions the health care vote. 2010 being a lot like 1994 in terms of -- it was a blood bath for democrats and how many democrats took the vote in 2010 on health care and then lost their seats. i wonder if you could speak to that experience because you voted for this budget in 1993 and it made you one-term member of congress. looking back on it now with some benefit of hindsight, how do you feel about that vote and the implications of it long term? >> well, i was surprised i was being asked to do it because they knew this was a republican seat. but i think we've got to send people down there who are willing to make tough votes. i know that that's tough. you go down, you work so hard to get there. and then all of a sudden you're put in a position where you have to kind of think, what is representation, what is leadership? you have to make tough votes. i think people want us to do that. it's very, very hard to do. >> marjorie, when -- in 1995

when president clinton famously said he thought he'd raised taxes too much at a fund-raiser, i know a lot of democrats were unhappy with him for saying that, felt he took the tough vote and then he undercut them. how did you feel at that moment? >> i said, oh, my. >> yeah, that is -- i would love to -- we're a minute over for this segment. i'm sorry. thanks to msnbc contributor jared bernstein and avik roy. i have found myself feeling sorry for joe biden lately and i want to explain why. a? that's a great choice. let me show you some faucets to go along with that. with the latest styles and guaranteed low prices, you can turn the bath you have into the bath you want. good choice. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now, this abbey vanity combo is a special buy. just $299.

i have to admit, i've had a soft spot for the near-misses of political history, the people one step or one moment or one fateful choice from glory and immortality but who just couldn't get there. good people whose achievements, careers, lives deserve to be remembered but really aren't. victims of fate. i also have to admit that lately i started to wonder if our current vice president is destined to join this group. i say this with absolutely no disrespect intended for joe

biden, but, well, i just see a lot of parallels between his story and the story of another near-miss vice president. his name was alvin barkley and harry truman's vp. barkley was an aging capitol hill lifer when he teamed up with truman in 1948. he served 14 years in the house, 22 in the senate. that's 36 total. he had been an ambitious up and comer once way back in 1928 he thought 4iz big moment arrived, a spot on al smith's democratic ticket. the deal fell apart, and years went by and they stopped talking about barkley as future of democratic party. he was 78 years old. he and truman were not supposed to win that election but somehow they did. just like that, barkley had the national stature he dreamed of. everyone thought it would be a nice reward for a long and distinguished political career. what they didn't know, at least not at first, is that winning

the vice presidency re-awakened barkley's ambition. if i can make it to the number two job, he figured, why should the top spot be out of reach. when the 1952 election rolled around, he went for it. this is when smoke-filled rooms existed. barkley waited until just before the democratic convention in chicago, then he put out word he was interested. and there was definitely an opening. all of the other candidates were opposed by at least one major party faction. no one had a lock on the nomination. truman then sent word he'd be happy if the delegates turned to his vice president. there was a problem. barkley was 74 years old, 75 by the end of the year. no one that old had ever won the presidency. party leaders worried he was too old to win, to campaign, to win to govern and they let him know, point blank. he wouldn't go easily. he got a chance to speak at the

convention and he gave it everything he had. speech of the lifetime. he thought it would sweep the crowd off its feet, create a stampede and make him president. he spoke and spoke and he spoke and he spoke, sort of like joe biden, and no stampede. when the nomination went to addly stevens, his dream of being president was gone. joe biden, like barkley he was a capitol hill lifer when barack obama put him on the democratic ticket in 2008. like barkley, everyone assumed biden would be happy to serve as veep and retire. i can die a happy man never having been president of the united states, biden said in a recent interview, but it doesn't mean i won't run. he's been dropping hints like this a lot over the past year. the truth is, joe biden's had his eye on the presidency for his whole career. when he ran in 2008 and when it went nowhere, it seemed to democraten straight conclusively

that his time had passed. then i landed on obama's ticket and made himself a 2016 contender. that's what he's trying to do and become right now. age is a factor here. biden will be 74 at the end of '16, just a year younger than barkley was in 1952. age is not the biggest obstacle in his path. hillary is. the polling average for the 2016 democratic field, early polls are meaningless, way in the future, but this is the exceptional in those disclaimers. in the modern era of presidential politics we don't see nonincumbent presidents or vice presidents that hillary enjoy this is far out, especially against an incumbent vice president. we're three years away from the next presidential election and big name democrats are already lining up to profess their support for hillary. other potential candidates are going out of their way to defer to her, to make it clear their interest in running hinges on her deciding not to. there's a group called ready for

hillary raising money, corralling endoergsmentes and laying groundwork for her if she runs. they announced they raised over $1 million in june. hillary isn't saying anything. she and biden sat down for breakfast and no one knows if the topic of 2016 came up. when hillary finally does make her decision, she may well be deciding joe biden's fate, and the fate of a lot of other democrats, too. it's an unprecedented situation. so much depending on one decision about one election by one nonincumbent and will hang over the democratic party and american politics until hillary makes it. we will talk about it next. "first day of my life" by bright eyes

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former democratic congressional candidate. i think the largest -- one of the largest legislative bodies in the world, new hampshire. jim, i actually want to start with you because you are -- you chaired the obama campaign in new hampshire in 2008, the critical first in the nation primary state. and you are saying that you are ready to support hillary clinton if she runs. >> yeah, i'm one who's ready for hillary as well. you know, in '08 when i made my decision, it wasn't that i didn't like hillary clinton, but i really was caught up with how impressive barack obama was. and i thought, he was the right guy for the time. and i think myself and a lot of people, particularly in new hampshire, think that now's the time for hillary clinton. that, you know, as secretary of state she demonstrated just how good she could do. >> this is -- i mean, this is significant. this is the phase, the primary process i find the most interesting, the invisible primary, it's called. when people like you, who are very active in the party,

influential in the party, are having conversations with others about -- with kan candidates, other donors, and a lot of decisions get made right now that end up deciding races before they even start. and you represent -- your story of being with obama in 2008, we actually have -- we have a clip. you weren't just with obama. hillary clinton actually attacked you at one point. this is a debate and hillary clinton talking about our guest today. >> when it comes to lobbyists, senator obama's chair in new hampshire is a lobbyist. he lobbies for the drug companies. >> that's -- >> so i think it's important that all of us be held to the same standard. that we're all held accountable. >> so, going after the familiar attack in politics, lobbying. she brought you into her campaign to attack barack obama. it seems like you represent something i'm seeing from a lot of people. a lot of people who went just with obama, but maybe hard feelings, are now coming around at this early date and saying, they're with hillary. i think this is somewhat

unprecedented. >> well, have i to tell you, i never interpreted tz a direct attack on me but more a discussion is a lobbyist going to be involved in a particular campaign. you might remember barack obama played very central on the whole lobbyist discussion and whether or not they'd be involved. i never did any federal lobbying. it's always been at the state level. so, i think, you know, while the issue was being raised, the lobbist issue, i don't think it was a personal talk on me and i never took it as that. >> perry bacon has a new story up today just looking at the effect hillary clinton is shutting down the early maneuvering. we normally see. he says five republicans have already gone to see iowa. so far only one visit at a june fund-raiser for -- excuse me, you've had no ooefsht events in iowa and one event in new hampshire from kristin gillibrand who made an appearance at a june fund-raiser. in is way down historically. dave, again, i know that the

knock on this is it's so far in the future, why are we talking about 2016. yes, she's ahead in the polls. she was ahead last time. i think there's something different going on right now. >> it is. i think we're losing something in politics because of it. the way you get an idea covered is to fight about it or to run for president and talk about it. i think that's why you saw howard dean, when he was at net roots nation, and i was at net roots nation, there was almost -- not quite unanimity of acceptance of hill ru but a place that was basically -- a movement, the online activists that was almost founded to oppose that kind of -- the pro-iraq war democrats, you know, pretty much acceptance. you saw howard dean not say no when he might run for president. he's not going to run for president but he realized the way to get any issue out of aperture of politics covered is to say you might. by not doing that -- if you had democrats criticizing obama, going to iowa, on anything, you would have a different debate, even if you have a democrat in the senate. i think the fact that ron wine

is introducing legislation gets less coverage than if it was something that went to iowa criticizing obama. i don't think that's a good thing at all. >> right. the other -- this speaks to adam, what your group does, if you have a competitive democratic presidential contest and you have multiple candidates, it gives you -- if candidate embraces your agenda, it puts pressure on another candidate, like hillary, to potentially come around. what do you make of this? >> i want to give a 20-year belated thank you to marjorie for her vote to raise taxes on the rich. i was coming of political age at that point and paying attention and it proved to me that it was able to go to washington and be bold. >> most people were in sixth grade. you know, that brings me to the hillary question. i'm ready for hillary to be bold and to answer some questions about her position on issues. will she say concretely she

won't cut medicare and medication and social security expand social security benefits? will she say wall street needs to be reform so we don't have another collapse and embrace the glass/steagall bill. >> how important to get her to answer these questions? i mean, this is happening without her saying anything. she might say in six months, i'm not going to do it. that would open the flood gates to a wide open field. without her even talking, we have nancy pelosi, she never officially endorsed obama, but she was helpful to obama in the run in '08. she's saying, i want it to be hillary. how much is it hurting your ability to get hillary to answer these questions? >> many people are organizing to create space for these issues. someone will occupy that space. if hillary clinton is smart and takes bold positions, things that are universally popular, then i think she forecloses a primary. if she doesn't, she's opening

herself up, wide open. >> who are you looking to? do you have names of people you're looking to? elizabeth warren, do you want her to run for president? >> it could be elizabeth warren. i don't think she's thinking about that right now but she's a game-changer. somebody needs to champion these issues and it could be anybody. >> and so, marjorie, i mean, full disclosure, we're talking about your in-law here but what do you make of the hillary talk at this point? >> i think she means what she says and says what she means. i think she's looking at it and she's not sure right now. i think she's going to do what she does best. she's very deliberative, thoughtful. i do think that it's pretty exciting that the democrats have a great bench. and the republicans don't. but everyone is waiting to see what hillary is going to do. >> i want to ask a question about the bench, because i'm not -- i'm wondering, jim, i wonder if this is what some of the enthusiasm for hillary is about. we can talk about -- other factors that go into it, but the

democratic bench f it's not hillary i guess the front-runner is joe biden. if it's not joe biden, is it andrew cuomo, martin o'malley? i'm not sure there's a huge bench right now for democrats. >> i think the bench for this race is people like andrew cuomo, but he has to wait until his race for governor is over before he can send any real signals. >> he's barely -- have people in new york even heard this guy speak? such a very quiet media strategy and i guess it's helped him in terms of his pop layer but do people know anything about him? we're talking about him as a top-tier presidential candidate. it's amazing to me. >> it's been a while since he was to new hampshire. the last time he was there when he campaigned for al gore. martin o'malley just yesterday sent signals as he gets ready to lead the democratic governors association, he said he would help candidates in new hampshire and iowa. that's a strong signal he's serious. joe biden continues to cultivate

his relationships. look, nobody has the kind of relationships in new hampshire that the clintons and joe biden have. i mean, they come in with a huge advantage to be able to put together a campaign. but i think, hillary has frozen the field. it would be smart for others to at least lay the groundwork because if she doesn't run you'll be way behind the eight ball. >> i want to talk about that o'malley news that came last night and what he's saying there, some context. again, get to that question of how it got to this point that you can remember in the run up to 2008 there was such an appetite, it seemed, in the party for a hillary alternative. how it got to the point -- i'm not seeing anything like i was seeing six years ago at this time. i have a great fit with my dentures. i love kiwis. i've always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. super poligrip free -- it creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc free. with just a few dabs,

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bjorn earns unlimited rewards for his small business. take these bags to room 12 please. [ garth ] bjorn's small business earns double miles on every purchase every day. produce delivery. [ bjorn ] just put it on my spark card. [ garth ] why settle for less? ahh, oh! [ garth ] great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. here's your wake up call. [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose double miles or 2% cash back on every purchase every day. what's in your wallet? [ crows ] now where's the snooze button? the news that broke yesterday was there's -- martin o'malley, governor of maryland, finishing his term in 2014 is talking openly about laying the groundwork for 2016. it's no mystery to anybody he's

interested. he's been interested in a while. the question has been, would he run if hillary runs. nothing suggests that he's now planning to run if hillary runs. it suggests to me -- the timing almost suggests that he felt compelled to do something proactively because there's so much energy being generated around this nonexistent hillary campaign that nonetheless is winning all this support. there have been stories about o'malley and others over the last few months that they're qualified, interested but, not in hillary runs. this is an interesting new perry bacon story and he talks about this dynamic. one clinton adviser said he was directly asked by an aide for a potential 2016 campaign how to raise the candidate. the clinton aide assured this was not a conflict of interest. the other candidate would absolutely not run if clinton does. when i look at news about o'malley or anybody else, dave, i say, nobody here seems to have the appetite right now to

challenge hillary clinton. >> they're not making an argument against her. and there's not issue they would challenge her on. she would not have lost the nomination had she not voted for the iraq war. looking into the future, would she have known it would have been that unpopular, of course not. the lesson for democrats saying the time f you take yourself out of the conversation if you don't vote for this. democrats have forgiven her. there's not something else they'll round on her about. when she's got into politics it's basically to -- not to check boxes, that's lights, but to reassure liberals that she agrees with them. she's now for gay marriage. when asked -- it is a little t bit -- it's depressing to watch if you like the scrum of politics. she's able to just kind of make an announcement very softly. it's almost like the way a royal system works where you check with the spokesman, you check -- you run a message up through the guard and, yes, she's okay with something. it's not the typical scrum of

politics. >> she did such an incredible job as sblecretary of state. she did it. she did it as a woman who followed two women secretaries of state, who, i think, felt that they couldn't do it partly because they were women, but she did. >> and she did it at a time when it was so critical, relationship repairing and maintenance, maybe more higher profile. adam, we say she was ahead going in last time. i remember last time it wasn't just that barack obama came along. that's not the only reason hillary clinton ran into trouble in 2008. before obama started flirting with the '08 race, john edwards was in iowa making the populist anti-hillary case in early 2005, 2006 and was gaining a considerable amount of traction. i'm comparing now to 2008 and i'm not seeing that at all. did her role as secretary of

state change their perspective saying, this is the time for her? >> i think we'll see iowa and new hampshire to be rallying point for people to exert their leverage to get her on the ballot. the third big box she needs to check is what does she think about corporate power. that's the issue of the day. when corporations are infiltrating both parties and wall street is the main driving force behind wanting to privatize potential security. social security is a new iraq. what issue is more popular with the american people, more on the radar, above the radar, than social security? and if she's not willing to enter a democratic primary in older states like new hampshire and iowa, and say, absolutely, i will not cut social security, medicare and medicaid benefits, again, that's huge. >> i guess when you say, that's the iraq for the democratic party. what i wonder is what is barack obama's approval rating among democrats in new hampshire or other states? he's talked about entitlement

reform and i don't see him falling apart with democratic voters. i've seen that analogy between that and iraq. i have a hard time with that. >> we've been doing polling in blue states, red states. overwhelmingly the white house position is social security is unpopular. >> the white house position but barack obama is still popular. they would renominate him, if they could, wouldn't they? >> they might. that sounds right. primaries will be about issues. if somebody becomes, you know, the john edwards, the howard dean, the elizabeth warren of the social security fight and they make their issue, look, we need to protect the little guy in our economy, and i'm going to be the person to do that, and that extends to wall street reform, and she's not willing to go there, again, that's political space she's unnecessarily leaving on the table. this is wildly popular in a democratic primary. polling shows even in deep red states like texas and kentucky, these cutting social security is overwhelming unpopular. expanding social security is overwhelmingly unpopular. >> i have to say i'm skeptical of these because there seems to be such a disconnect where

people -- social safety net programs, the idea of specific government programs test well in a lot of times of stat. the. what is the ground like in new hampshire right now in terms of other democrats you talk to, your -- know joe biden is going to be coming in for a fund-raiser for maggie hassen, democratic governor of new hampshire. i think you're hosting that fund-raiser. is this something -- are you alone in sort of saying, hey, i was with obama, now i'm with hillary, or are you seeing this in a lot of people you talk to up there? >> i haven't found one democratic activist who i've spoken to who hasn't said they're going to be with hillary clinton. it's that strong. i think to marjorie's point, it isn't just the performance she did as secretary of state. and i give credit to the president and to hillary clinton, but her just accepting that position. >> doing it. >> is what i think the american people are craving in politics.

she could put politics aside and take a position for the good of the country. and if congress would do that, we'd get a lot more done, but we've got this partisan bickering that people are just frustrated with. >> hate it. >> i think it's one of her greatest strengths that she demonstrated she can get beyond the politics and do what's right for the country. i think that's one of the subtle strengths she's got, that people like. >> and i'm campaigning now. i never go -- i ever go to anyplace where people don't come up to me and say, please tell hillary to run, please. there's such enthusiasm out there for her. >> what should we know today? ou? let's go. if you find a lower advertised price they'll match it at the register. really... yeah, in a "jif". you ready? what?! that's the walmart low price guarantee backed by ad match. bring in receipts from your local stores and see for yourself.

so what should we know for today? a freshman member of congress seemed to get under president obama's skin with a question about local works project in his district. happened in a closed meeting when sean patrick malony asked president obama about it.

it could probably be handled at the staff level prompting president obama to agree. according to a staff report, the president said, you're right. you should have asked staff about this. he added at least he could tell his constituents he stood up to the president for them. he insisted it was all in good fun and the president insisted someone would follow up on the matter. no sign of losing steam, brown's odyssey, one of the most unusual in american politics. served two terms as governor in the late '70s, early '80s, managed to run for president twice in that time, them lost a u.s. senate campaign in 1982, went to study with mother teresa, a, japan, back, wage add guerilla plan in 1982, fell out of sight, came back again as mayor of california and state attorney general and finally won the governor's job back in 2010 at the age of 72.

according to fundraising reports brown raised $2 million for election campaign, possible his opponent raised less than $50,000. in a poll wednesday put brown's approval rating at a healthy 54% to put him in good shape to win an unprecedented term for governor next year. president obama's 2012 campaign manager was hired by the tories. will advise britain's conservative party, coalition government must face voters by 2013. told bbc, quote, i have long admired prime minister cameron. may look like he's changing sides, we should note in the uk even the conservative prime minister universal health care, marriage equality and climate change. finally we should know wisconsin governor scott walker treated attend he's at the national association meeting to a motorcycle ride. meeting in milwaukee, walker

along with six past and present instructed to wear denim and leather rode through city streets with combat vaet rans to harley museum. probably the biggest appeal for the biker boat since president obama won an endorsement from the fonz in 2008. want to find out what my guests know. starting with you. >> with corporations cutting back on pensions they promised to workers, social security is more important than ever. senator from the red state of alaska and tom harkin from rural state of iowa have bills in the senate to expand social security benefits. we did the polling, in kentucky people should know by 51% to 24% in kentucky people favor expanding social security. texas three to one. at expand social security.com, almost 4,000 people taking action. it's a website so nice i'll say it twice, expand social security.com. >> channeling his inner jerry brown, giving out the toll-free.

>> while it's quiet for democrats on the presidential front, the republicans are already starting to get quite aggressive. today another presidential candidate arrives in new hampshire, representative peter king. he's been very open about talking about running, unlike all the others. he has joined the chris christie crowd in attacking potential presidential candidate rand paul as being -- he's very fearful his positions are too isolationist. i think that makes for an interesting debate this early as candidates start talking about how they don't care for rand paul. >> all the work done congress is out for a month, for all of august. republicans went home with the message they need to focus on irs scandal. they need meetings and public events that emphasize that's the part of the scandal trinity they used to talk about, that's the part to focus in. actually groups on the right, freedom works and other conservative groups demanding

more town halls so they can get on board and defunding obama care and other things. if you're looking for repeat of the august town halls of 2009 where they were big open raucous events. they can deal with the rest of the scandals when they get back. >> commonwealth court of pennsylvania will be deciding this week on the constitutionality of the voter id law. keep your eye on it. it's a battleground state so is north carolina, similar frob there. most people affected by it, as we know, are seniors and minorities. >> we will be keeping an eye on it. i want to thank adam green, and msnbc contributor from slate.com. former congresswoman and current candidate margerie margolis. thank you for getting up and joining us.

back next week saturday and sunday. gegss will include mather from new york. coming up next is melissa harris-perry. a new era of peace from israeli and palestinian people. this is the moment john kerry has been building for his entire life. his legacy and that of president obama is on the line. melissa harris-perry is coming up next. we'll see you next week here on "up." okay. a, b? some faucets to go along with that. with the latest styles and guaranteed low prices, you can turn the bath you have into the bath you want. good choice. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. right now, this abbey vanity combo is a special buy. just $299.

when is a military coup not a coup. plus smoke, mirrors, saggy pants misdirecting the national conversation on race. and the cast from the hottest new tv show or the hottest new show on your computer "orange is the new black" comes to nerdland. first, the moment john kerry has been preparing for his entire life.